Social Networking and Learning Communities


Description:

A social network service focuses on building and reflecting of social networks or social relations among people, e.g., who share interests and/or activities. A social network service essentially consists of a representation of each user (often a profile), his/her social links, and a variety of additional services. Most social network services are web based and provides means for users to interact over the internet, such as e-mail and instant messaging. Although online community services are sometimes considered as a social network service in a broader sense, social network service usually means an individual-centered service whereas online community services are group-centered.
A learning community is a group of people who share common values and beliefs, are actively engaged in learning together from each other. Such communities have become the template for a cohort-based (how VERY cool that this is us!), interdisciplinary approach to higher education. This is based on an advanced kind of educational or 'pedagogical' design. These networks are world wide and are a good source for interacting with people from areound the globe.


Tools:

  • Backchannel: the practice of using networked computers to maintain a real-time online conversation alongside live spoken remarks.
  • Classmates
  • Facebook: users can add friends and send them messages, and update their personal profiles to notify friends about themselves.
  • Flixster
  • LinkedIn: is a business-oriented social networking site mainly used for professional networking.
  • Myspace
  • Ning: is an online platform for people to create their own social networks
  • Tumblr
  • Twitter
  • Wikispaces
  • Library Thing
  • Twittering History - historical reinactments using Twitter. "Those who do not remember history are condemned to retweet it."
  • Gaming- users can play and make friends

Resources:

Facebook - Holocaust biography site - interesting use of FB as historical piece
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_network_service
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learning_community
http://www.nsta.org/publications/news/?lid=tnav
http://secondlife.com/?v=1.1
http://outerworlds.com/
http://www.virtualworld.com/
http://www.moshimonsters.com/home/general/microsoft?utm_source=MicrosoftPPCGeneral&utm_medium=Online&utm_campaign=MicrosoftPPCGeneral